Writing for children is not the poor relation of writing for adults

I think it's fair to say that children's writing is often seen as inferior to writing for adults. Many children's writers can tell you about the times they've been asked when they are going to write a proper book, a grown up one, for 'real' people. Children are viewed as incomplete adults in need of a lesser (or incomplete) literature. But age based immaturity does not = simple. That's just patronising, and rude.

On occasion I've told myself that I just prefer reading books for children and that is why I write them, but then I remember I've read and continue to read plenty of books written for grown ups - classic literature, literary prize winners, crime novels, thrillers, romance and more - and often enjoyed them and sometimes adored them. So it's not that that sways me to write for children.

The truth is I think writing is a vocation, a calling, a compulsion, or a curse if you like. I have a need to write that is not bound by rational thought or reason. If I try to escape it, it sticks a story worm in my head while whispering 'gotcha.' I write stories for children because these are the ideas that come to me and where my skills seem to lie. I don't ever remember a moment when I consciously chose to write for a younger audience over some other group. I just did. I think the die was cast when the curse was thrown. I think maybe writers for adults are the same. To ascribe some superiority to something you didn't choose seems a bit on the nose.

 You don't control it. It's how your vocation, your compulsion, has manifested itself. Some writers can write for both adults and children but they are the exception, not the rule, and their vocation has been generous (and to imply this means writing either is easy seems a little disingenuous). And I think some writers who do both are clearly better at one over the other and they have strayed from their calling. And some writers who attempt a particular kind of book because it must be easier than their other preferred form usually demonstrate why this is patently not true.

Genre doesn't determine quality...

Some people genuinely believe that children's literature can never qualify as good literature. I feel bad for them. Kent University thought it was okay to say this 

- teachers at the Centre for Creative Writing "love great literature and don't see any reason why our students should not aspire to produce it … We love writing that is full of ideas, but that is also playful, funny and affecting. You won't write mass-market thrillers or children's fiction on our programmes." 

I think they were truly surprised that other folk didn't agree with them and brushed off the complaints about their position on children's literature with a few jokes. Eventually they apologised but I couldn't help feeling they weren't entirely sure what had just happened. A book for children is simple to write and simple to read. Move along. Nothing to see here people.

And folk commenting on the article didn't get it either 
- lol at all the butthurt Dan Brown and Harry Potter readers on CiF crying because someone pointed out they are reading childish unchallenging books said letusberealistic.

I don't think letusberealistic (or Kent University) is reading children's books properly, or the right ones. But Frip's comment 

- A lot of people read for pleasure - not to be challenged. I am one of them. My work is challenging - I want entertainment when I read. Why does a book have to challenge you? 

which appears to be an attempt to support children's books is not much better. Many children's books from YA novels to picture books contain big ideas. Complex themes and issues are put forward in a highly distilled format (no mean feat) that explores, explains and enlightens sometimes in less than 1000 words. Sometimes in less than 500 words. In a way that a very young mind can take it on board and move forward toward adulthood with that knowledge understood and absorbed. These books are challenging and entertaining. Plenty of adult books cannot do both. 

I'm not going to dispute that there are some rubbish children's books out there with little thought or effort put in to them. With cliched, tired or empty themes or stories that revolve around a one note joke. But there are many children's books that easily qualify as good writing. Surely good writing or a good book is not determined by it's genre. My biggest surprise is that adult fans of adult literature believe they never read a good book until they read an adult book. Maybe they had difficult childhoods that they would rather block out or deny. How easily they forget that it is probably only good children's books that got them through those challenging years. 

Adulthood - why go there?

Yesterday the publisher unexpectedly sent through roughs for the picture book I have coming out with them next year. I am rather in love with how beautiful they are (and these are just the roughs!). And I now cannot wait for this book to be out. I would like to know how people I have never met get inside my head and take the ideas there and breath a layer of visual magic on them.  This is how we like our surprises to go :)

I am also doing some prep work on a new project. This is because I have other more important things to be doing. You know how it goes. There is interest in the new project though so it too will become important. But I should finish up my other jobs first.

If you are regular readers you will know I am a regular bleater on the subject of the adult literary/children's literature divide. It is a sore subject with me and one which I doubt will ever resolve to my satisfaction. But I like to see folk fighting the good fight, putting up sensible arguments and this is very well done here by Philip Nel.  I thought this was good - 3) Almost no children’s literature is written, illustrated, edited, marketed, sold, or taught by children. Adults — and adults’ idea of “children” — create children’s books. It’s profoundly hypocritical for an adult to suggest children’s literature as unworthy of adult attention. Indeed, adults who make such claims are either hypocrites, fools, or both. Or just rude?

And it astounds me how adults forget their own childhood so readily. Not just the interest in the world around them they felt as children, all the facts and details and mechanics of it all to be soaked up, and their striving to wrestle themselves into maturity, but the desire they felt for acknowledgement, understanding and legitimacy in the eyes of the adults who surrounded them. Children are complex, inquiring, and full of potential and the adults who understand this work to provide literature which stimulates and extends this potential. Literature that acknowledges them, asks the big questions, challenges them and treats them as the intelligent, amazing folk that they are. I wish folk would stop trivializing material written for children and the people who produce it - its disrespectful. Bleat over and out.

It is not the book's fault...

I have been bleating on too much recently so it's time to go a foraging in the interweb for some juicy links for you'all. This lovely piece in the Guardian by Oliver Jeffers about picture books and influences (thank you to The Children's Bookshop Wellington for the link) makes the very sensible point that picture books are books with pictures. They are not necessarily just for children (although children generally know a good thing when they see it). There are many picture books I have bought myself and enjoyed reading many times without a child involved. The best picture books can work on multiple levels, have twists and revelations and evoke a deeper understanding or emotional response. Or they just make me smile, or laugh or prod at my heart a little. They can enlighten, satisfy and uplift better than many tomes of adult literature. Not every picture book achieves this, but there are plenty that do. People who suggest picture books must be the easiest of all literature to write are people who don't really read picture books. But that is not the books fault.

Of course many writers and readers and the public in general believe children's and young adult's books cannot be as complex or sophisticated as adult books. I have examined this issue on my blog before. Fab writer Jane Bloomfield drew my attention to this blog post by Cathy Butler at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure which discusses what makes books complex and how adult and children's fiction measure up. My biggest question is why there is an 'us and them' kind of attitude in the first place - not Cathy Butler but the adults who like to dismiss children's literature as automatically less complex/inferior in the first place. It is a defensive posture and those adults guilty of this behaviour might like to examine the motives for their arguments. A good book is a good book irrespective of the age of its readers. Dismissing literature read primarily by children as automatically simple and naturally inferior dismisses the readers as well. Some adults don't seem to remember they were ever children, or how complex and smart they were as youngsters. Its kind of funny really. Actually, now I come to think about it, that might make a good picture book.